The Heresy of Reformed Pharisaism

A loving diagnosis from one of our greatest missiologists.

Nearly forty years ago, Harvie Conn, then the Professor of Missiology at Westminster Theological Seminary, began his lecture saying,

Basically, what I want to talk about is Pharisaism in the Reformed community. Now that should get your attention and ensure that this tape will not be circulated widely.¹

Well, sorry, Harvie. I’m circulating the tape.

Harvie Conn taught at Westminster from 1972 until he retired in 1998. He began his work in apologetics and later focused exclusively on missions, having become the seminary’s first professor of missions. Much of his work focused on urban missiology. He was gifted with a mind that could synthesize various fields and apply them practically to the church's concerns. Though he was confessionally Presbyterian, Harvie developed strong convictions around social action and ministry among the poor, views not commonly held by Presbyterians then or now. Harvie was the academic advisor for Tim Keller in Tim’s D.Min program, where he developed a strong Reformed ecclesiology of the diaconate. Harvie’s influence has not been given the credit he is due by Keller’s recent biographers.

As one of his former students told me, Harvie is remembered for challenging the Reformed status quo with a smile and a sense of grace. This 1987 lecture, “Pharisaism in the Evangelical Church,” is a great example of these qualities. He continued,

What we basically want to do is talk about the heresy of introversion, about church journeys inward that never become church journeys outward. A self-understanding of the church as a fortress with its drawbridge up, rather than an army marching. We’re talking about impenetrable circles that are drawn around ourselves with solid lines instead of dotted lines.

We’re talking about the difference between proselytizing and evangelizing. Proselytizing says, “Join my circle.” Evangelizing says, “Let’s widen God’s circle.” The one form celebrates the theology of the Catechism by sealing it off. The other celebrates that same theology by passing it on. Proselytizing takes theology and makes it a magnificent possession. Evangelism makes it a magnificent obsession.

One makes doctrine, the Bible, and the Reformed heritage a verbal object of study. The other makes it a commitment to grace, a covenant show-and-tell. One shuts up gospel infectiousness in an isolation ward, and the other spreads the disease through contagious contact.

Now that’s what I want to talk about.

The heresy of Reformed Pharisaism is a malignant twisting of the Reformed tradition and biblical teachings that prioritizes those on the inside at the expense of those on the outside. It is Pharisaism because it is attractive to elitists of a majority culture who want to withdraw from those they consider ‘other.’ It is heresy because it violates everything our Savior loves and the work he came to do.

Throughout his lecture, Conn described several attributes of Reformed Pharisaism that are prominent in Reformed churches and evangelicalism more broadly. The first of these he described as a failure in communication. We believe that communication of the gospel and biblical teaching can be distilled to a simple one-way process that is little more than “the digestion of prepackaged packets of information that is aimed at a White Anglo-Saxon audience.”

Conn’s concern had little to do with what is most effective. Of greater concern was how this communication failure reflected a theological vision that measured success by how well it was received in a predominantly White majority culture that was already familiar with theological jargon. This is not evangelism, nor is it kingdom mission.

The correction to this failure cannot be found with some new method, curriculum, or seminar to enlighten our churches. Our problem lies in disposition and direction, rather than knowledge and strategy. We need our hearts to be moved by “the demands that are created by the fact that the kingdom is here and the kingdom is now in Christ.” In light of these demands, “how do we go about scratching where people itch?” In other words, how do we apply our faith to address the real needs of our communities?

The Reformed are often unaware of the needs of their communities because they have professionalized their ministry for the inner circle of their churches. As a result, “Program maintenance becomes our primary goal… Bigness becomes a sign of greatness. Professionalism becomes a sign of leadership. Decision-making power is exemplified in the gloved hand of the clerical administration.”

Success is measured by how effectively we disseminate information and the scope of our ministries. Yet God never intended for his church to be governed by metrics but by the new, reconciled life that foreshadows the kingdom breaking in with Christ.

When we become more concerned with measurable success than a kingdom-oriented mission, we lose “the prophetic function the church should address to society.” Rather than discipling “feet washers for society” who reach our communities with the gospel, we simply “reproduce clones” to attract people who are just like us. We become more concerned with nurturing “denominational ideologies” to build “little societies for our kind of people” than we do with engaging people across cultural, racial, and other socioeconomic barriers.

The church must see itself as “an instrument of the kingdom, as part of the good news of the kingdom of God… It has been placed on earth to proclaim the kingdom of God and to exemplify the kingdom of God.” According to Conn, too many churches “worry so much about paying the rent that they’ve forgotten the good news.” Their resources are deposited in institutional upkeep rather than missional commitments.

The Reformed struggle to address the gospel to the needs of those around them because they’re often too busy telling rather than listening. “How much of our gospel communication is determined by what the preacher or the theological professor thinks we need, rather than by the concrete felt needs of the body? How much of our real response to the gospel is actually heard by the pastors, who in the process are filtering all our answers through their own pre-structured grids? You still hear what you want to hear.”

Conn suggested that we may be bad at listening because we’re bad at praying: “Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been committed to them by him who is himself the Great Listener. What’s prayer if it isn’t God listening?” God never speaks in the abstract but always in response to real needs. What would the priorities of our churches be if we spent more time communing with the Great Listener?

In all of Conn’s diagnosis of the problems, he was less concerned with the causes than with the effects. The driving issue for Conn was that Reformed churches have become parochial rather than universal. That is, they have often limited their focus to an educated White middle class rather than breaking down every barrier and obstacle to take Jesus to the world.

“For too long,” Harvie said, “the evangelical communities, and specifically the Reformed communities in the United States, have had a ‘come’ structure… You can’t be a missionary church and continue insisting that the world must come to the church on the church’s terms. The church must become a ‘go’ structure, and it can only do that when its concerns are directed outside of itself.”

When will our Reformed churches break free, and what will break them free?

A basic lack of compassion and allegiance to “American success values” has repelled many from our Reformed congregations. This is why Harvie could ask, “Where are the ethnic minority congregations among us? Are we really trying to demonstrate that in Jesus Christ there’s neither Greek nor Jew? Or are we really asking that, first of all, they become circumcised WASPs before they can become Black, Hispanic, or Asian Calvinists?”

Harvie believed that Reformed Pharisaism could be most readily identified in our failure to reach the urban poor. Will urban communities look to the church “for answers to the great questions? Brutalized cities. Battered families. An eight-year-old child picked up and carried off by the ambulance, battered by its father and mother. Ethnic communities who are tired of hearing that suburban is beautiful. Who is going to break us free?”

Communities that our society has marginalized have found that they are also unwanted in Reformed churches. They are excluded from the fellowship of the Reformed churches they have known. They have many questions, and we have not answered them. Will we listen long enough to hear?

The ignored and neglected outside our churches “raise questions about the credibility of a church which, according to them, says one thing and does another.” How can Reformed churches, which have ignored neighborhoods like mine for over 100 years, be heard in communities like this one?

Harvie ended his lecture here: “I think the only thing we can do, and we have to start here, is to repent. What we need to say to our unchurched brothers and sisters is you are right in all your criticism of the churches. We ask your forgiveness. Then begin there.”

And if we are unwilling to repent? Well, Jesus had a parable for that, and I don’t need to remind you of which one.

Lord, forgive us for our Pharisaical hearts. Give us a heart that beats for the people and places you love and that we have too long ignored. Reshape our commitments, our programs, and our budgets to align with your kingdom rather than our agendas. We ask that our churches might be known for their hospitality, graciousness, and listening ears, rather than cold doctrine and an insider’s club for a majority culture. Give us a desire for our churches to reflect the fullness of the cities, places, and peoples you have placed us in. Amen.

If you want to familiarize yourself with Harvie’s work, I recommend you begin with his most well-known book, Evangelism: Doing Justice and Preaching Grace.

1. Harvie Conn, “Pharisaism in the Evangelical Church”, Westminster Theological Seminary. Accessed April 2025.